Research on corrosion and deterioration of construction materials and strategic maintenance of infrastructures in Southeast Asia

Project Gist

Maintain Infrastructures against Severe Atmospheric Environments

Keywords

Infrastructure, Corrosion, Tropical Weather, Air Pollution, Airborne Salt

Background, Purpose, and Project Achievements

While the investment to new infrastructures in Japan has been significantly reduced during the last several decades since its peak in 1990s, much attention has been paid to the structural integrity evaluation, and rehabilitation/life-extension method of existing aged infrastructures. However it has been observed that the rapid developments in the Southeast Asian Countries are still on-going such as construction of national-wide road network, urban traffic control system in Megacities, port facilities and so on in order to strengthen the country’s economy. In such countries, the weather condition such as high humidity and high temperature, as well as pollutions such as sulfur oxide due to the rapid industrialization without taking any environment countermeasures may cause the severe deterioration of construction materials, particularly steels. Therefore, the strategic infrastructure maintenance policy has been discussed among researchers and engineers in the Southeast Asian Countries according to the local environmental observations.

Future Prospects

Since lots of infrastructures in developing countries have been constructed supported by the advanced Japanese construction technology, it is hoped that the measurement of the weather condition such as high humidity and high temperature as well as air pollutions in the South Asian countries can contribute to develop the strategic maintenance methodology and to realizes the Japanese Government policy such as promoting the export of infrastructures.

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Principal Investigator